


Bend Nor Break

by SplicesOfNight



Category: Avatar (TV), Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Gen, non-bending bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 04:43:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4508238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SplicesOfNight/pseuds/SplicesOfNight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being the son of an Avatar and a gifted waterbender is not all it's cracked up to be.  Especially when you're the only non-bender in the family.  As such, Bumi has always felt a bit out of place at his home on Air Temple Island.  Fortunately, Bumi knows one person who can relate to him: his uncle, Sokka.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bend Nor Break

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this headcanon that Bumi would be really close to Uncle Sokka as two non-benders surrounded by friends and a family of gifted benders. This fic was inspired by that idea. WARNING: Cheesiness ahead!

“Come on!”  The boy punched a fist viciously through the air in front of him.

“Stupid air!  Just bend.”  On the last word the boy opened his palm, wound up his arm, and shoved it forward as if trying to knock someone over.

A burst of air shot past him.  For a split second his eyebrows shot up in shock, but before he could celebrate the wind picked up behind him and knocked him clean off of his feet.  He landed flat on his face in the sand.  Crying out in frustration, he slammed a fist into the ground.  In front of him tiny waves lapped up against the shore playfully.  He glared at them as if this was all their fault.

“Bumi!”

The boy rolled over in the sand and looked up the hill behind him.  There was no one there.

“Bumi!  Where are you?  Kya is done practicing.  She wants you to play with her!”

Bumi groaned and jumped to his feet.  He very much doubted his sister wanted to play with him.  Use him as a moving waterbending target was probably more accurate.  He scampered away from the beach towards the trees as fast as he could.  At the base of the hill he pressed himself up against one of the thicker trunks and held still.  Out of the corner of his eye he could see someone appearing at the top of the hill.  

Katara stopped just before the incline and sighed.  Bumi held still, careful not to snap a twig under his foot or breathe too loudly.  Kya suddenly appeared at their mother’s side.  In her blue water tribe style dress she looked like her mother in miniature.

“Where’s Bumi?” she asked.  She had a small ball of water between her palms that she was bending into undulating shapes before making it back into a sphere.

“I don’t know, honey.  You know how he likes to explore the island,” Katara said.  Kya looked displeased and let the water between her palms fall to the dirt.  “Come on,” Katara continued, “He’ll wander back eventually.”  She rubbed her daughter’s shoulder lovingly.  They disappeared back over the top of the hill.  

Bumi waited a few minutes to make sure they were gone before he peeled himself away from the tree.  He tugged on the back of his shirt.  The sun was blazing overhead and the thin fabric was starting to cling to his back from the sweat.  He wandered back down to the beach, but did not try to bend this time.  Instead he walked slowly along the shore line, just far enough from the water that the waves couldn’t quite reach his bare feet.  It gave him a strange satisfaction watching the water fall just short of touching him.

Air Temple Island wasn’t very big, and within minutes he had left the smooth beach behind.  The ground was rougher, rockier.  Instead of a hill there was instead a jagged cliff at his side.  The rocks pricked his feet uncomfortably, but it didn’t bother him much.  He spent most of his time on the island running around barefoot and had since he was a small child.

A rock shifted unexpectedly under Bumi’s foot.  He stumbled.  His legs and arm swung wildly.

SPLASH.

Bumi gasped.  He was sitting soaked in the cold sea water.  The water ran out of his shaggy hair, down his face.  It got in his eyes and made him blink furiously.  A sudden bout of anger and frustration overcame him again.  He sprang to his feet and began lashing out at the water.  He kicked and swatted at it.  He sent droplets of water spraying over the sun-baked rocks.

“WHY.  CAN’T.  I.  BEND YOU?!” he yelled.  

One of his flying feet made contact with one of the underwater rocks.  He staggered out of the water on one foot, howling like a dog.  He hadn’t experienced this much pain in his toes since Kya convinced him to feed the turtle ducks at the park in Republic City with bread between his toes.  Apparently, turtle ducks preferred sweaty toes to stale chunks of bread.

“Bumi?”

Bumi whirled around.  A familiar figure was hiking down the cliff side towards him.  He would recognize that short ponytail anywhere.

“Uncle Sokka?”

“Yep!  That’s what they call me.”  Sokka was nearly to the bottom of the cliff now, a wide grin stuck on his face.  “Or I guess what you and Kya and Tenzin call me.  Well not really Tenzin.  He’s not quite old enough to get that ‘k’ sound right…”

“But what are you doing here?” Bumi asked.

Sokka took a last leap from a jagged rock in the cliff face and stumbled to a halt in front of Bumi.  He grinned and brushed the dust from his clothes.

“Oh, the council finished business surprisingly quick today, and seeing as I’m not expected back at the Southern Water Tribe for a few days, I decided to stop by for a bit.  Your mom said you were out, so I came looking.”

For the first time Sokka noticed that his nephew was soaked through and standing in a shallow tide pool.  Another wave washed up, filling the tide pool to the brim and nearly reaching Sokka’s boots.  He looked the boy up and down.  Bumi pushed a dripping lock of hair out of his face self consciously.

“Uh, what are you doing down here anyways?” Sokka asked.  Bumi looked away from his uncle.  His mind, normally so quick witted and clever, could not seem to come up with a single excuse for his situation.  He could feel his face start to burn with shame.  He shuffled his feet.  Under the water his toe was still throbbing.  He sat down on a rock and started nursing it, more to avoid looking at his uncle than anything.

Realization dawned over Sokka’s face.  The grin slipped from his lips.  He squatted down in front of Bumi and looked him in the face.

“Bumi, were you trying to bend?” Sokka asked, and his voice was much softer now.  

Bumi didn’t answer immediately.  He was still rubbing his sore toe.

“It’s not fair,” he said finally, in a low voice.  “Kya gets to train with mom all the time, and now Tenzin is an airbender.  And what can I do?  Nothing.”

He crossed his arms over his knees.  The tide was beginning to come in.  He could feel the water lapping at the rock he was sitting on but ignored it.

“Bumi!  You don’t need to be a bender to be able to do something.  Look at me!”  Sokka grinned and struck a ridiculous pose.

“You’re a great councilperson, Uncle Sokka, but I want to fight.  I want to-”

“EX _CUSE_ me!”  Sokka shot to his feet before Bumi could finish.  “ _Who_ took down the Fire Nation with _nothing_ but a _boomerang_?”  And with a flash of silver Sokka had pulled the boomerang out of nowhere and was waving it in Bumi’s face.

“Um.  Dad, mum, Toph, Firelord Zuko-” Bumi started listing, but again Sokka cut him off, still waving the boomerang.

“Shhhh.  Well _who_ helped them?!?”  Before Bumi could answer Sokka fumbled the boomerang.  For a moment he toppled on top of the uneven rocks, arms flailing like windmills, then he and the boomerang fell straight into the tide pool.  

Water cascaded over the pair of them.  Bumi roared with laughter.  He clutched his chest while Sokka spluttered.  Some of his hair had come loose from his carefully tied ponytail and fallen in front of his eyes.  He started to laugh too, and for a few minutes neither of them could stop.

“Seriously, though,” Sokka said, wiping saltwater and tears out of his eyes, “if you want to be able to fight, you can do it.  Look at the chi blockers.  Look at the Kyoshi warriors.”  A dreamy look passed over his face at his last few words, but he shook it away.  “You’ve just got to find your style.  Here.”  

He dipped his hand into the tide pool and picked up the boomerang.  It glinted in the bright sunlight.  He ran one hand lovingly along the flat of the blade and then held it out to Bumi.  Bumi took it and held it like it was a delicate child.

“That’ll get you started,” Sokka said.

“What??” Bumi said.  “Uncle Sokka, your boomerang…”

Sokka waved dismissive hand.

“It’s fine.  To be honest, it doesn’t get a lot of use from me anymore, and I can always get a new one of I really want it.  You’ll need it more than I will.  You could say it's a... BUMI-rang now.”  

He put his hands on his knees and stood up, laughing at his own joke.  Bumi shook his head, but he couldn't help but smiling.  There was something about his uncle that had always been able to cheer him up.

“Come on,” Sokka said.  He held out a hand to his nephew.  “Let’s get back to the temple.  I thought I smelled something delicious being cooked earlier up there.  Probably no meat, though, sadly.”  His face fell into a disappointed frown, and he shook his head as if he couldn’t believe the Air Acolytes could live on such a diet.

Bumi took Sokka’s outstretched hand and got to his feet.  Together they walked back along the beach.  They rounded a bend and the air temple came into view, waiting for them.

“Oh, and Bumi?”

“Yeah?”

“Just try not to take out your sister with that boomerang, will you?  Your mother would kill me."


End file.
